A Place For My Books

Welcome

As an avid reader and an avid data nerd, I decided to create this site to track some of my reading and favourite books, both for my own interest and for anyone looking for good book recommendations. Links where applicable are to independent bookstores. Support libraries and independent bookstores!

Current Reading

Current Books Reading

These are the books I’m reading right now. I often have an e-book from the library, a paper book from either my shelf or the library, and an active read-aloud book.
Cover Book Author Description
Jade City Fonda Lee The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It’s the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.
The Dawn of Everything David Graeber & David Wengrow Renowned activist and public intellectual David Graeber teams up with professor of comparative archaeology David Wengrow to deliver a trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution–from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of “the state,” political violence, and social inequality–and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

Last 5 Books Read

These are the last 5 books that I’ve finished.
Cover Book Author Description
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologizes Fredrik Backman Everyone remembers the smell of their grandmother’s house. Everyone remembers the stories their grandmother told them. But does everyone remember their grandmother flirting with policemen? Driving illegally? Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown? Seven-year-old Elsa does. Some might call Elsa’s granny ‘eccentric’, or even ‘crazy’. Elsa calls her a superhero.
Vengeful V.E. Schwab Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Great partnerships—now soured on the vine. But Marcella Riggins needs no one.
H Is For Hawk Helen Macdonald On the surface, H is for Hawk is a falconry book chronicling the training of a Northern Goshawk, and yet it is so much more. It is a brilliantly written memoir of the darkest time in Helen Macdonald’s life, as she struggled to cope with the sudden death of her father, noted photographer Alisdair Macdonald.
Small Things Like These Claire Keegan It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Laughing with the Trickster Tomson Highway Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap fool. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have a blast and to laugh ourselves silly.

Best Books Read Since 2020

The books in these sections are all ones that I’ve read since the start of 2020 (not necessarily books published in those years). I have put the authors whose works of fiction I’ve read and enjoyed at least 5 of (separate from single series) in their own categories here, because they would take up a lot of the different years’ top books. After that are my favourite primarily standalone works in fiction or non-fiction that I read in each of those years. They are ordered by when I read them during the year. I’ve also enjoyed reading a number of science fiction and fantasy series. Rather than choose individual ones for best-of-year lists, I’m just listing my favourite series in whole here on their own.

Authors

Favourite Authors

Richard Wagamese

Cover Book Author Description
Keeper’n Me Richard Wagamese The story of Garnet Raven. As a small child he was taken from his home on an Ojibway reserve and placed in a series of foster homes during the Sixties Scoop. Garnet eventually finds his way back home to the Whitedog Reserve in northwestern Ontario where he hails from, but it isn’t an easy journey.
Ragged Company Richard Wagamese Four chronically homeless people–Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger–seek refuge in a warm movie theatre when a severe Arctic Front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them.
Indian Horse Richard Wagamese Set in Northern Ontario in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it follows protagonist Saul Indian Horse as he uses his extraordinary talent for ice hockey to try and escape his traumatic residential school experience.
Medicine Walk Richard Wagamese The journey of 16-year-old Franklin Starlight and his dying, alcoholic father Eldon Starlight to find a burial site for Eldon at a place deep in the forest he remembers fondly from his youth.
Starlight Richard Wagamese Richard Wagamese’s final novel is a rapturous and profoundly moving story of love, compassion, mercy, and the consolations to be found in the natural world.
A Perfect Likeness Richard Wagamese The volume brings together two previously published novellas by Richard Wagamese, Him Standing and The Next Sure Thing, with a foreword from author Waubgeshig Rice. Both stories follow the lives of young men who have dreams for a better future.

Fredrik Backman

Cover Book Author Description
A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman Ove, an ill-tempered, isolated retiree who spends his days enforcing block association rules and visiting his wife’s grave, has finally given up on life just as an unlikely friendship develops with his boisterous new neighbors.
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologizes Fredrik Backman Everyone remembers the smell of their grandmother’s house. Everyone remembers the stories their grandmother told them. But does everyone remember their grandmother flirting with policemen? Driving illegally? Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown? Seven-year-old Elsa does. Some might call Elsa’s granny ‘eccentric’, or even ‘crazy’. Elsa calls her a superhero.
Britt-Marie Was Here Fredrik Backman The story revolves around 63-year-old Britt-Marie, a woman who finds herself living alone after her husband has a heart attack and cheats on her with another woman. Needing to start a live on her own, she goes to the job centre and doesn’t leave until she has a job.
Beartown Fredrik Backman Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
Us Against You Fredrik Backman A story of the ways loyalty, friendship, and love carry a small community through its darkest days.
Anxious People Fredrik Backman A poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
The Deal of a Lifetime and Other Stories Fredrik Backman Two novellas and a short story from Fredrik Backman
The Winners Fredrik Backman Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake.

Becky Chambers

Cover Book Author Description
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet Becky Chambers Fleeing her old life, Rosemary Harper joins the multi-species crew of the Wayfarer as a file clerk, and follows them on their various missions throughout the galaxy.
A Closed and Common Orbit Becky Chambers Pepper takes Lovelace, the AI now housed illegally in an artificial body, back to her planet and helps her as she struggles to find her own identity and way of interacting with the world.
Record of a Spaceborn Few Becky Chambers A teenaged boy rages against the limits of a world structed around family. A mother watches her children’s fears of space paralyze them. In the midst of these, an orphaned young man arrives in the Fleet, desperate for a home and security that he has never had. Accidents happen, but violence lurks, too.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate Becky Chambers The story follows four astronauts as they travel beyond the Solar System on a research mission to document extraterrestrial life on four planets. The explorers are put into suspended animation for extended periods of time while they travel between the planets.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Becky Chambers The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through. When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop.
A Psalm for the Wild Built Becky Chambers It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools and wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again, fading into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in.
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy Becky Chambers After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.

Thomas King

Cover Book Author Description
Medicine River Thomas King Medicine River chronicles the lives of a group of contemporary First Nations in Western Canada. The novel is divided into eighteen short chapters. The story is recounted by the protagonist, Will, in an amiable, conversational fashion, with frequent flashbacks to earlier portions of his life.
Green Grass, Running Water Thomas King An exploration of a group of characters living in the small Canadian town of Blossom. It explores the Native American struggle to come to terms with their identity in the twentieth century; each of the Native American characters in the novel is striving to find a balance between tradition and modernity.
The Back of the Turtle Thomas King When Gabriel Quinn, a brilliant scientist, abandons his laboratory and returns to Smoke River Reserve, where his mother and sister lived, he finds that almost everyone in the community has disappeared. Even the sea turtles are gone, poisoned by an environmental disaster known as The Ruin.
Indians on Vacation Thomas King Inspired by a handful of postcards sent nearly a hundred years ago, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace long-lost uncle Leroy and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.
Sufferance Thomas King Sufferance is a novel about Jeremiah Kemp, a man who has an ability to see patterns in human behaviour. His billionaire boss uses that ability to create profit and power and Jeremiah’s skills earn him the nickname “the Forecaster.”

Best Books of 2022

2022

Top 10 Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
The Mountains Sing Nguyen Phan Que Mai A multigenerational tale of the Tr<U+1EA7>n family, set against the backdrop of the Vi<U+1EC7>t Nam War.
What Strange Paradise Omar El Akkad In What Strange Paradise, Eritreans, Egyptians, Syrians, Palestinians, Ethiopians, and Lebanese people all share a dream: To escape their lives and find a better place to live, a nicer future for their children, and an existence away from poverty and the chaos of war and political persecution.
The Strangers Katherena Vermette The Strangers brings readers into the dynamic world of the Stranger family, the strength of their bond, the shared pain in their past, and the light that beckons from the horizon. This is a searing exploration of race, class, inherited trauma, and matrilineal bonds that—despite everything—refuse to be broken.
The Overstory Richard Powers From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, the novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Once There Were Wolves Charlotte McConaghy The unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Honoree Fanonne Jeffers Spanning two hundred years, it takes an intimate look at race, feminism, love, and family as told by a line of unforgettable Black women from America’s South. It focuses on a fictional African American family in Georgia, beginning before the state was Georgia.
Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel In this captivating tale of imagination and ambition, a seemingly disparate array of people come into contact with a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future.
An Unkindness of Ghosts Rivers Solomon Rivers Solomon’s novel is set on a giant generation ship, on an interstellar voyage of centuries, divided between the wealthy, light-skinned upper-deckers and the oppressed, laboring lower-deckers.
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue V.E. Schwab France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Small Things Like These Claire Keegan It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Top 10 Non-Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures Merlin Sheldrake When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey Jonathan Meiburg An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet’s deep past in their family history.
Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey James Rebanks The acclaimed chronicle of the regeneration of one family’s traditional English farm
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Lulu Miller David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him.
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest Suzanne Simard Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present Dara Horn Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones.
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Robin Wall Kimmerer Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter Ben Goldfarb Eager is the powerful story of how one of the world’s most influential species can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and climate change — and how we can learn to coexist with our fellow travelers on this planet.
H Is For Hawk Helen Macdonald On the surface, H is for Hawk is a falconry book chronicling the training of a Northern Goshawk, and yet it is so much more. It is a brilliantly written memoir of the darkest time in Helen Macdonald’s life, as she struggled to cope with the sudden death of her father, noted photographer Alisdair Macdonald.
Laughing with the Trickster Tomson Highway Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap fool. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have a blast and to laugh ourselves silly.

Stats

FicNonfic PageCount BookCount
Fiction 24,884 69
Nonfiction 12,561 40
Total 37,445 109

All Books

Best Books of 2021

2021

Top 10 Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
Pachinko Min Jin Lee Pachinko is an epic historical fiction novel following a Korean family who immigrates to Japan. The character-driven story features an ensemble of characters who encounter racism, discrimination, stereotyping, and other aspects of the 20th-century Korean experience of Japan.
Transcendent Kingdom Yaa Gyasi A portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love.
The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon The Shadow of the Wind is a coming-of-age tale of a young boy who, through the magic of a single book, finds a purpose greater than himself and a hero in a man he’s never met.
Migrations Charlotte McConaghy A novel about a woman who has always been running—from her childhood, her mistakes, her memories—and this time, she’s traveling from Greenland to Antarctica, following the world’s last flock of Arctic terns on their final migration.
Go, Went, Gone Jenny Erpenbeck The tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz.
Greenwood Michael Christie The book uses the ringed cross-section of a tree as an organizing principle and structure. As Christie writes, “Wood is time captured. A map. A cellular memory. A record.” And, in some cases, a handy metaphor for a family tree.
The Brothers K David James Duncan This novel spans decades in the lives of the Chance family. A father whose dreams of glory on a baseball field are shattered by a mill accident. A mother who clings obsessively to religion as a ward against the darkest hour of her past. Four brothers who come of age during the seismic upheavals of the sixties.
Five Little Indians Michelle Good The book follows the lives of five young adults as they grapple with life after ‘Indian School’ in the 1960s. From their prison-like residential school on Vancouver Island, they are turfed onto the streets of Vancouver with no support, money, family connections or life skills.
Cloud Cuckoo Land Anthony Doerr Cloud Cuckoo Land follows five characters whose stories, despite spanning nearly six centuries, are bound together by their mutual love for a single book.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman The story of a quirky yet lonely woman whose social misunderstandings and deeply ingrained routines could be changed forever–if she can bear to confront the secrets she has avoided all her life.

Top 10 Non-Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
The Truth About Stories Thomas King “Stories are wondrous things,” award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. “And they are dangerous.”
Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy.
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine James Maskalyk Maskalyk witnesses the story of “human aliveness”–our mourning and laughter, tragedies and hopes, the frailty of being and the resilience of the human spirit. And it’s here too that he is swept into the story, confronting his fears and doubts and questioning what it is to be a doctor.
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers Andy Greenberg The true story of the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in history and the desperate hunt to identify and track the elite Russian agents behind it.
Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family Amanda Jette Knox An inspirational story of accepting and embracing two trans people in a family–a family who shows what’s possible when you “lead with love.”
Underland: A Deep Time Journey Robert Macfarlane A journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland’s glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang A family history that spans a century, recounting the lives of three female generations in China, by Chinese writer Jung Chang. First published in 1991, Wild Swans contains the biographies of her grandmother and her mother, then finally her own autobiography.
Educated Tara Westover Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning how to stew herbs into medicine, scavenging in the family scrap yard and helping her family prepare for the apocalypse. She had no birth certificate and no medical records and had never been enrolled in school.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life George Saunders A deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty Patrick Radden Keefe The book examines the history of the Sackler family, including the founding of Purdue Pharma, their role in the marketing of pharmaceuticals, and the family’s central role in the opioid epidemic.

Stats

FicNonfic PageCount BookCount
Fiction 20,549 55
Nonfiction 11,451 36
Total 32,000 91

All Books

Best Books of 2020

2020

Top 10 Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young United States Navy code breaker and mathematical genius, is assigned to the newly formed joint British and American Detachment 2702. This ultra-secret unit’s role is to hide the fact that Allied intelligence has cracked the German Enigma code.
Shades of Grey Jasper Fforde For Eddie, life looks colorful. Life looks good. But everything changes when he moves with his father, a respected swatchman, to East Carmine. There, he falls in love with a Grey named Jane who opens his eyes to the painful truth behind his seemingly perfect, rigidly controlled society.
The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K Le Guin The novel follows the story of Genly Ai, a human native of Terra, who is sent to the planet of Gethen as an envoy of the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Ai’s mission is to persuade the nations of Gethen to join the Ekumen, but he is stymied by a lack of understanding of their culture.
A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles A novel about Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat who is condemned by Communists to spend the rest of his life confined in the Metropol, the capital’s most glamorous hotel.
Roots Alex Haley The story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America; it follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley.
The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children.
The Book of Negroes Lawrence Hill The story of Aminata Diallo, who is captured by slave traders in Africa and brought to America. Aminata’s story illustrates the physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, religious and economic violations of the slave trade.
Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel Set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
Piranesi Susanna Clarke A book about a man, Piranesi, living in a grand labyrinth that is filled with statues, beset by floods and surrounded by celestial objects. Piranesi carefully documents the world around him, including the house’s many halls, the tides and the human remains that he finds.
The Glass Hotel Emily St. John Mandel The book follows the aftermath of a disturbing graffiti incident at a hotel on Vancouver Island and the collapse of an international Ponzi scheme.

Top 10 Non-Fiction

Covers Book Author Description
The Body: A Guide for Occupants Bill Bryson The Body helps you become smarter about how to take care of and use this mechanism that lets you have life by explaining how it’s put together, what happens on the inside, and how it works
One Native Life Richard Wagamese One Native Life is a look back down the road Richard Wagamese has traveled - from childhood abuse to adult alcoholism - in reclaiming his identity. It’s about what he has learned as a human being, a man, and an Ojibway in his 52 years on Earth.
The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business Wright Thompson The Cost of These Dreams collects many of Thompson’s best articles but with a central theme running through them – the price and struggles that come with seeking and achieving success.
When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi The memoir of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University, who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in his mid-thirties. Kalanithi uses the pages in this book to not only tell his story, but also share his ideas on how to approach death with grace and what it means to be fully alive.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Atul Gawande A meditation on how people can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness, and approaching death. Gawande calls for a change in the way that medical professionals treat patients approaching their ends.
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America Thomas King Neither a traditional nor all-encompassing history of First Nations people in North America, The Inconvenient Indian is a personal meditation on what it means to be “Indian.”
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson The story of how and why millions of Black Americans left the South between 1915 and 1970 to escape the brutality of the Jim Crow Laws and find safety, better pay, and more freedom in what is known today as The Great Migration.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption Bryan Stevenson A memoir by American attorney Bryan Stevenson that documents his career defending disadvantaged clients.
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Caroline Criado Perez The book describes the adverse effects on women caused by gender bias in big data collection.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Robin Wall Kimmerer A book about the role of Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to Western mainstream scientific methodologies.

Stats

FicNonfic PageCount BookCount
Fiction 26,095 65
Nonfiction 16,613 52
Total 42,708 117

All Books

Series

Favourite Sci-Fi / Fantasy Series

The Expanse

Covers Book Author Description
Leviathan Wakes James S.A. Corey Two hundred years after migrating into space, mankind is in turmoil. When a reluctant ship’s captain and washed-up detective find themselves involved in the case of a missing girl, what they discover brings our solar system to the brink of civil war, and exposes the greatest conspiracy in human history.
Caliban’s War James S.A. Corey On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system.
Abaddon’s Gate James S.A. Corey For generations, the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt – was humanity’s great frontier. Until now. The alien artifact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has appeared in Uranus’s orbit, where it has built a massive gate that leads to a starless dark.
Cibola Burn James S.A. Corey Independent settlers stand against the overwhelming power of a corporate colony ship with only their determination, courage, and the skills learned in the long wars of home. Innocent scientists are slaughtered as they try to survey a new and alien world.
Nemesis Games James S.A. Corey A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle. As a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.
Babylon’s Ashes James S.A. Corey The Free Navy has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them. James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone.
Persepolis Rising James S.A. Corey In the thousand-sun network of humanity’s expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace.
Tiamat’s Wrath James S.A. Corey Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.
Leviathan Falls James S.A. Corey As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.
Memory’s Legion James S.A. Corey A collection of short stories and novellas set in The Expanse universe.

The Murderbot Diaries

Covers Book Author Description
All Systems Red Martha Wells All Systems Red follows the (mis)adventures of Murderbot as it tries to protect its humans, when those humans get in trouble after the sudden disappearance of another team on the other side of the planet.
Artificial Condition Martha Wells Murderbot returns to a site where it went rogue and killed a bunch of people, teams up with a research transport named ART, and falls in with a trio of researchers who are trying to negotiate a deal with their terrible employer.
Rogue Protocol Martha Wells The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit is. And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.
Exit Strategy Martha Wells Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah—its former owner (protector? friend?)—submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit. But who’s going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue? And what will become of it when it’s caught?
Network Effect Martha Wells When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action. Drastic action it is, then.
Fugitive Telemetry Martha Wells When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

The Broken Earth Trilogy

Covers Book Author Description
The Fifth Season N.K. Jemisin The story follows the journey of Essun, mother and “orogene,” an oppressed, racially defined class of powerful earth-benders in Jemisin’s fictitious, supercontinental world, The Stillness.
The Obelisk Gate N.K. Jemisin The book continues forward from an especially bad Fifth Season, one that may become an apocalypse. It follows two main characters: a mother and daughter, both of whom are magically talented (“orogenes”), who were separated just before the most recent Fifth Season.
The Stone Sky N.K. Jemisin The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

The Oxford Time Travel Series

Covers Book Author Description
Doomsday Book Connie Willis The story is set in two epidemics in two time periods, an influenza epidemic in 2054 and the Black Death in 1348, and the two stories alternate, the future time worrying about Kivrin, the student trapped in the wrong part of the past, while Kivrin back in 1348 is trying to cope and learn and help.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis The story of Ned Henry, a historian from Oxford University in the year 2057 who is part of a team attempting to reconstruct to the last detail the Coventry Cathedral as it was before its destruction during the WWII Nazi Blitz.
Blackout Connie Willis Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules.
All Clear Connie Willis Traveling back in time, from Oxford circa 2060 into the thick of World War II, was a routine excursion for three British historians eager to study firsthand the heroism and horrors of the Dunkirk evacuation and the London Blitz. But getting marooned in war-torn 1940 England has turned them from temporal tourists into besieged citizens struggling to survive.

Remembrance of Earth’s Past

Covers Book Author Description
The Three-Body Problem Liu Cixin Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth.
The Dark Forest Liu Cixin The UN forms the Planetary Defense Council (PDC) to coordinate defensive efforts against the impending assault of the Trisolarans, who have launched a massive invasion fleet that will reach Earth in around 400 years.
Death’s End Liu Cixin Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge.

Hyperion Cantos

Covers Book Author Description
Hyperion Dan Simmons Seven pilgrims from different worlds are chosen for a mission to Hyperion. They must locate the Time Tombs. These structures continually move back in time and they are guarded by a dangerous figure called the Shrike. They must destroy the Shrike or manipulate the Time Tombs to preserve humanity.
The Fall of Hyperion Dan Simmons On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing—nothing anywhere in the universe—will ever be the same.
Endymion Dan Simmons A story of destiny and heroes. Aenea, the daughter of a cybrid and famous Hyperion pilgrim, travels 250 years into the future, to the year 3099 A.D., beginning her journey to become The One Who Teaches.
The Rise of Endymion Dan Simmons Set more than 275 years after the fall of the Hegemony of Man, an interstellar organization connected by farcaster portals. The Roman Catholic Church has formed the Pax, an administrative entity that formalizes the Church’s control and implements a theocracy.

The Imperial Radch

Covers Book Author Description
Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie The story of Breq, the sole surviving “segment” of the artificial intelligence that once animated an interstellar troop ship, Justice of Toren, and its ancillary soldiers. Breq, the first-person narrator and protagonist, embarks on a quest for vengeance.
Ancillary Sword Ann Leckie Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she has only a single body and serves the emperor. With a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to go to the only place in the galaxy she would agree to go: to Athoek Station to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew – a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.
Ancillary Mercy Ann Leckie While searching Athoek Station’s slums, Fleet Captain Breq finds someone who appears to be an ancillary from a ship that has been hiding beyond the Radch’s reach for three thousand years.

Teixcalaan

Covers Book Author Description
A Memory Called Empire Arkady Martine The story follows Mahit Dzmare, the ambassador from Lsel Station to the Teixcalaanli Empire, as she investigates the death of her predecessor and the instabilities that underpin that society.
A Desolation Called Peace Arkady Martine A few months after A Memory Called Empire, alien forces massacre an industrial colony of the Teixcalaanli Empire. The Teixcalaanli admiral Nine Hibiscus, tasked with confronting the threat, requests an Information Ministry specialist to attempt to communicate with the inscrutable enemy.

The Machineries of Empire

Covers Book Author Description
Ninefox Gambit Yoon Ha Lee Ninefox Gambit centers on disgraced captain Kel Cheris, who must recapture the formidable Fortress of Scattered Needles in order to redeem herself in front of the Hexarchate. To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.
Raven Stratagem Yoon Ha Lee When the hexarchate’s gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn’t reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment - and possessing her.
Revenant Gun Yoon Ha Lee Shuos Jedao is awake… …and nothing is as he remembers. He’s a teenager, a cadet-a nobody-in the body of an old man; a general in command of an elite force. And he’s the most feared, and reviled, man in the galaxy.

Top 25’s

Here I went further back, as my book tracking includes back to 2015, and I also pulled in some books I’ve read over years before that, and tried to make an active list of top 25 books in each category, regardless of when I read them. There is lots of overlap with the 3 years above due to the number of books I read. A note on earth-based and non-earth based is simply that some of the sci-fi series were set on Earth or specified Earth-origin characters, and some were not. This made a reasonable way to split them in half rather than having a list of 50 books.

Top Fiction Lists

Fiction

Favourite Authors

Book Author
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet Becky Chambers
A Closed and Common Orbit Becky Chambers
Record of a Spaceborn Few Becky Chambers
To Be Taught, If Fortunate Becky Chambers
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Becky Chambers
A Psalm for the Wild Built Becky Chambers
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy Becky Chambers
A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologizes Fredrik Backman
Britt-Marie Was Here Fredrik Backman
Beartown Fredrik Backman
Us Against You Fredrik Backman
Anxious People Fredrik Backman
The Deal of a Lifetime and Other Stories Fredrik Backman
The Winners Fredrik Backman
Keeper’n Me Richard Wagamese
Ragged Company Richard Wagamese
Indian Horse Richard Wagamese
Medicine Walk Richard Wagamese
Starlight Richard Wagamese
A Perfect Likeness Richard Wagamese
Medicine River Thomas King
Green Grass, Running Water Thomas King
The Back of the Turtle Thomas King
Indians on Vacation Thomas King
Sufferance Thomas King

Earth-based Spec Fic

Book Author Series
Ender’s Game Orson Scott Card Ender’s Saga 1
Speaker for the Dead Orson Scott Card Ender’s Saga 2
Xenocide Orson Scott Card Ender’s Saga 3
Children of the Mind Orson Scott Card Ender’s Saga 4
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide 1
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide 2
Life, the Universe and Everything Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide 3
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide 4
Doomsday Book Connie Willis Oxford Time Travel #1
To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis Oxford Time Travel #2
Blackout Connie Willis Oxford Time Travel #3, All Clear #1
All Clear Connie Willis Oxford Time Travel #4, All Clear #2
The Three-Body Problem Liu Cixin Remembrance of Earth’s Past - 1
The Dark Forest Liu Cixin Remembrance of Earth’s Past - 2
Death’s End Liu Cixin Remembrance of Earth’s Past - 3
Leviathan Wakes James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 01
Caliban’s War James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 02
Abaddon’s Gate James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 03
Cibola Burn James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 04
Nemesis Games James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 05
Babylon’s Ashes James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 06
Persepolis Rising James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 07
Tiamat’s Wrath James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 08
Leviathan Falls James S.A. Corey The Expanse - 09
Memory’s Legion James S.A. Corey The Expanse - novellas

Non-Earth Spec Fic Series

Book Author Series
The Fifth Season N.K. Jemisin Broken Earth - 1
The Obelisk Gate N.K. Jemisin Broken Earth - 2
The Stone Sky N.K. Jemisin Broken Earth - 3
Hyperion Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos - 01
The Fall of Hyperion Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos - 02
Endymion Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos - 03
The Rise of Endymion Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos - 04
Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie Imperial Radch - 01
Ancillary Sword Ann Leckie Imperial Radch - 02
Ancillary Mercy Ann Leckie Imperial Radch - 03
The Fellowship of the Ring JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings 1
The Two Towers JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings 2
The Return of the King JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings 3
A Memory Called Empire Arkady Martine Teixcalaan - 01
A Desolation Called Peace Arkady Martine Teixcalaan - 02
Ninefox Gambit Yoon Ha Lee The Machineries of Empire - 01
Raven Stratagem Yoon Ha Lee The Machineries of Empire - 02
Revenant Gun Yoon Ha Lee The Machineries of Empire - 03
All Systems Red Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 01
Artificial Condition Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 02
Rogue Protocol Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 03
Exit Strategy Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 04
Network Effect Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 05
Fugitive Telemetry Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries - 06

Speculative Fiction

Book Author
A Master of Djinn P. Djeli Clark
An Unkindness of Ghosts Rivers Solomon
Cloud Cuckoo Land Anthony Doerr
Good Omens Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell Susanna Clarke
Kindred Octavia E. Butler
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Migrations Charlotte McConaghy
Moon of the Crusted Snow Waubgeshig Rice
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel
Seveneves Neal Stephenson
Shades of Grey Jasper Fforde
Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue V.E. Schwab
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Louise Erdrich
The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K Le Guin
The Martian Andy Weir
The Road Cormac McCarthy
The Stand Stephen King
The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead
The Vanished Birds Simon Jimenez

Contemporary Fiction

Book Author
All My Puny Sorrows Miriam Toews
Brother David Chariandy
Daughters of Smoke and Fire Ava Homa
Disappearing Earth Julia Phillips
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman
Empire Falls Richard Russo
Five Little Indians Michelle Good
Go, Went, Gone Jenny Erpenbeck
Greenwood Michael Christie
Little Fires Everywhere Celeste Ng
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
Once There Were Wolves Charlotte McConaghy
Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart
Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward
Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb
The Glass Hotel Emily St. John Mandel
The Goldfinch Donna Tartt
The Illegal Lawrence Hill
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
The Overstory Richard Powers
The Round House Louise Erdrich
The Strangers Katherena Vermette
There There Tommy Orange
Transcendent Kingdom Yaa Gyasi
What Strange Paradise Omar El Akkad

Historical Fiction

Book Author
A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles
All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
Beloved Toni Morrison
Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson
East of Eden John Steinbeck
Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Homegoing Yaa Gyasi
Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry
Love Medicine Louise Erdrich
Pachinko Min Jin Lee
Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Roots Alex Haley
Small Things Like These Claire Keegan
The Book of Negroes Lawrence Hill
The Brothers K David James Duncan
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
The Mountains Sing Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead
The Night Watchman Louise Erdrich
The Shadow King Maaza Mengiste
The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Vanishing Half Brit Bennett
Underworld Don DeLillo
Washington Black Esi Edugyan

Top Non-Fiction Lists

Non-Fiction

History / Memoir / Narrative

Book Author
Blood in the Water Heather Ann Thompson
Born a Crime Trevor Noah
Dark Money Jane Mayer
Educated Tara Westover
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty Patrick Radden Keefe
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou
Killers of the Flower Moon David Grann
Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain
Know My Name Chanel Miller
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine James Maskalyk
Living Brave: Lessons from Hurt, Lighting the Way to Hope Shannon Dingle
Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family Amanda Jette Knox
Midnight in Chernobyl Adam Higginbotham
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea Barbara Demick
One L Scott Turow
One Native Life Richard Wagamese
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers Andy Greenberg
The Big Short Michael Lewis
The Disordered Cosmos Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
The North-West is Our Mother Jean Teillet
They Said This Would Be Fun Eternity Martis
Up Ghost River Edmund Metatawabin
Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich
When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang

Social Justice

Book Author
All Our Relations Tanya Talaga
All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep Andre Henry
Disability Visibility Alice Wong +
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space Amanda Leduc
Four Hundred Souls Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain +
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption Bryan Stevenson
Laughing with the Trickster Tomson Highway
Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood Frederick Joseph
Peace and Good Order Harold R. Johnson
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present Dara Horn
Policing Black Lives Robyn Maynard
Seven Fallen Feathers Tanya Talaga
So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo
The Black Friend Frederick Joseph
The Body is Not an Apology Sonya Renee Taylor
The Fire This Time Jesmyn Ward
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America Thomas King
The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander
The Skin We’re In Desmond Cole
The Truth About Stories Thomas King
The Undocumented Americans Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson
Unsettling Canada Arthur Manuel
We Have Always Been Here Samra Habib
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge

Science / Nature

Book Author
A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey Jonathan Meiburg
A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Atul Gawande
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Robin Wall Kimmerer
Drawdown Paul Hawken
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter Ben Goldfarb
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures Merlin Sheldrake
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest Suzanne Simard
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Robin Wall Kimmerer
H Is For Hawk Helen Macdonald
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Caroline Criado Perez
Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey James Rebanks
The Body: A Guide for Occupants Bill Bryson
The Breakthrough: Immunotherapy and the Race to Cure Cancer Charles Graeber
The Code Book Singh, Simon
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Gene: An Intimate History Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot
The Invisible Kingdom Meghan O’Rourke
The Redemption of Wolf 302 Rick McIntyre
The Reign of Wolf 21 Rick McIntyre
The Rise of Wolf 8 Rick McIntyre
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Wisdom of Wolves - Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack Jim & Jamie Dutcher
Underland: A Deep Time Journey Robert Macfarlane
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Lulu Miller

Other Non-Fiction

Book Author
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life George Saunders
Basketball (and Other Things) Shea Serrano
Betaball: How Silicon Valley and Science Built One of the Greatest Basketball Teams in History Erik Malinowski
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Anne Lamott
Embers Richard Wagamese
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Hofstadter, Douglas R.
How To Be Perfect Michael Schur
If the Oceans were Ink Carla Power
Impossible Owls Brian Phillips
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches Tyler Kepner
Meander, Spiral, Explode Jane Alison
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Michael Lewis
Movies (and Other Things) Shea Serrano
One Story, One Song Richard Wagamese
The Arm Jeff Passan
The Baseball 100 Joe Posnanski
The Book of Basketball Bill Simmons
The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business Wright Thompson
The Monk of Mokha Dave Eggers
The Only Rule Is It Has To Work Ben Lindbergh & Sam Miller
The Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking Russell Carleton
The Soul of Baseball Joe Posnanski
What is the What Dave Eggers
Where Nobody Knows Your Name John Feinstein
You’re a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass) Mike McHargue

Full Lists

Since I’ve been actively tracking my reading (2015 and on), below are the fiction and non-fiction I’ve read in that time. The lists are sortable and searchable. Following that are books I have on my shelf. They’re separated into unread and read, and can be searched and sorted.

Books I’ve Read

Reading List

Fiction read since 2015

Non-Fiction read since 2015

Books I Have

Personal Bookshelf

Unread

Read

Looking for Book Recommendations?

These are some of the sites I look at for book reviews and lists of books.
* Literary Hub - Recommendations and reviews over all categories
* Book Riot - Recommendations and reviews over all categories
* Tor.com - Science Fiction and Fantasy
* Book Marks - Aggregated reviews of books
* NPR Books - NPR’s favourite books of the year (2022-2013), sortable by many categories
* Literature Map - Put in an author you like, and find a bunch of new ones you might enjoy
* Five Books - Top 5’s in a bunch of categories
* Electric Literature - Reading lists, articles, essays, and more